01.20.2009 Sneak Peak Pics

Well my darling sis got the pics in we took during our visit to Calif. The "Cousin Pics", they turned out adorable! Who would have thought a complete stranger could capture so well the personalities of my children! My favorite is the Love one, and of course the "diva stance" as I've dubbed it. Of course i love the ones of all 3 of them (since that was the goal!) My Niece Aubrey has come so far from being a preemie NICU baby to the 20+ lbs she is today. We Love you Baby Aubrey! See you real soon! p.s. Ya gotta love the matchy match outfits the girls had on, that Bubba coordinated with! Thanks Auntie Kelly for the Gymbo shopping trip!


Little Miss Cutie Pie...our favorite Cousin...AUBREY!

My favorite of the 3 of them, Aubrey looks so grown up and BIG!!

The very essence of their "LOVE" for each other...

"Bubba Love" can't you see it in his face?

"Diva Stance"...that's my girl!!

Technical DIfficulties

Ok, so there is quite a bit to share between Christmas and Jan 15th! The problem is I'm on busy overload, and also cannot get the darn slideshow to work (...help!!!) Taxes, Mortgage Mess, unpacking, office stuff and 3 kids with activities has left me a little befuddled. So excuse my excuses and I'm hoping to be able to "back post" the 10 or so days worth of posts real soon...likely when my husband goes out of town in a couple of days because strangely my life always becomes less complicated when that happens! Love you honey, but it's true! So stay tuned, and check back - cuz older stuff will magically pop into place. In the meantime, i couldn't hold off on posting the fabulous photos we took in Jan of the kids...thus the skipping of a couple of weeks of posts! Enjoy!

12.24.2008 Christmas Traditions

What are your Christmas or Christmas Eve Traditions? We have quite a few, and starting next year will be adding a new one to our list! Some of the things we currently do are:

*The kids have Advent calendars to count down the days til Christmas

*Let each child open 1 gift on Christmas Eve

*Make cookies for Santa to leave out on the very special "Cookies for Santa" plate along with carrots for all 9 Reindeer. (oh..and before u start counting on your fingers, yes, there are 8, but dont forget Rudolph!)

*Watch a special Christmas Movie (or 2 or 3)

*Bathe & Dress the little kiddos in their new matching Christmas PJ's

*Give Thanks in Prayer for our Lord and Savior who was Born and Died so we might live!

*Have a Christmas Eve Feast with yummy Ham, Mashed Potatoes and all the good stuff (we missed out on this one this year)

*Christmas Morning the kids collect their stocking full of goodies and that toothbrush they get every year from "Santa"

*Open and play with their Santa gifts that are left unwrapped in front of the tree

As a family, we decided though that next year would be different. This year was already way scaled down due to finances being so tight...but in honoring the true meaning of Christmas we decided that next year we would try something new. (Another Blog i follow mentioned this tradition and i thought it was AWESOME, so thanks Kim, it will now be one of our Holiday traditions from now on) Next year the kids will each only get 3 gifts. (*this of course doesn't count the gifts from Aunties, Uncles, Grandma etc.) These 3 gifts represent the 3 gifts brought for baby Jesus by the Wise Men to celebrate his Birth (Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh) And though it is doubtful the kids will get any of those things- i think limiting it to 3 is symbolic and will hopefully help them to not only appreciate them more, but give them the real sense of what gift giving/receiving is all about. It's not about quantity - so why not have it try to mean something? Instead of getting caught up in the gluttony of making a wish list with 15 things on it, why not limit it to 3 items that will mean the most? While the kids still believe in Santa we thought it fair to still give them 1 large Santa item..so i guess we are up to 4 already. Again, we will see how it goes. The kids were excited about it!

Below is a video i took on my camera on Christmas morning when the kids woke up and before they went down the hallway to see what Santa had brought them. I love that my kids "get it" and though it is still a "cutesie" song they DO know what CHRISTmas is all about.



And if you couldn't tell, i just love that way Bubba & Danielle are holding hands and Bubba is dancing while he is singing. I love my kids!

12.23.2008 Merry Christmas Erick!

Every year Erick gets to leave us and head for California to spend Christmas with his dad. Yep, all the way to California to miss our wonderful WHITE Christmas! So, he always gets Christmas early, and opens his presents the night before he leaves. So this year was no exception, and thanks to the list he emailed back like in October (?!) managed to get pretty much exactly what he was hoping for. Of course mom threw in a few completely unexpected items that he loved just as much (Sweeney Todd movie & a Cake Wrecks t-shirt..from one of our favorite blogs!)



Thank you to all our family for "hooking him up" ...(quite literally with the wireless adapter for his xbox 360) and much more. He is a happy little gamer. Oh and speaking of that....you should see it in the Theater Room when he plays. It is AWESOME! And he will have many friends over as soon as he gets back to try out all his new stuff!

12.19.2008 School Projects & More

This was a VERY exciting day at Hamilton Christian Academy for my little girl. First off, they made the cutest little project. Danielle's teacher, Ms. Sedar is a genious! She emphasized the Christian take on the Gingerbread house thing...which I dearly loved. Danielle was so excited to show me this......



What is it you might ask?! Well it is a gingerbread (well, actually Graham Cracker) Manger scene. Complete with baby Jesus on a bracelet you can wear after you have devoured your candy creation!



And what is HBJ you might ask?! Well, silly, it stands for HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS of course! That is the reason for the season, and little hands have a hard time spelling that out on one small Graham Cracker. It melted my heart to see it! It came complete with Coconut snow-an entirely edible manger scene...gotta love it~

This day was also the day Danielle lost yet another tooth! Her top right (well, the left front if you are looking at her) She was practically giddy when i picked her up. Both times she lost her tooth during school, and got to bring them home in cute little plastic container shaped like a tooth!

And last, but not least, it was the last day of school...now starts Christmas Break! YEAH!!!!

12.18.2008 Danielle's Christmas Program

Danielle had her annual school Christmas program. It was really cute this year and i got quite a bit of video on my camera, but not alot of still pics. She looked adorable in her Christmas Dress and her new missing tooth. She even wanted her hair curled.


You can see from the photos she is still definately the smallest in her class (even smaller than the 1st graders!) but she sang her little heart out it was adorable!





The Pre-K and Kinder's sang the cutest little songs also and we all had some laughter at just how cute little kids are when performing!

12.17.2008 Danielle Loses her 1st Tooth !

Ok, so is this the month for dental drama or what? It seems Sis has FINALLY lost her very first tooth. Hard on the little girl to be in 2nd grade and all her friends have lost teeth & are getting their new ones in already. She was so excited to have 3 teeth that are loose. I told her she would definately lose them before the end of the year. Wow she was excited to lose this!



So this was the bottom tooth, and her top 2 front teeth are loose also, so we are hoping she will lose those real soon. Stay tuned!
**p.s dont ask me what is up with the camera angle, or why sis looks like she has ginormous notrils and a stoned expression?**

12.13.2008 Winter Storm YIPPEE!!

Ok, so you all know...we LOVE snow. As you also know, we get hardly ANY snow here in the Bitterroot valley, and even that is melted as fast as it comes because this is the "banana belt" of Montana. Well....whatever!!! This winter is an exception. We had a few flurries, some that actually stuck...and woke up this Saturday morning and BLAM we had some serious snow (for here) dumped overnight. Before it got too much worse the kids suited up and ran outside to play in it (15 min Max since the next storm was about to hit). I love the snow pics, and the doggies love the snow too!







Don't look too hard, but you can really see Bubba's crooked knocked around teeth in this photo...less than 12 hours from the big boo-boo

12.12.2008 cont'd - Gingerbread Making!

Well now, before all the drama unfolded with Bubba's teeth.....we had planned to go over to my friend Wendy's house for a little Friday night fun! The kids have always decorated Gingerbread Houses each year - and though we couldn't get around to planning it with the normal clan - we decided to go for it alone. I took it all to Wendy's for the BIG fun. Unfortunately, due to the events mentioned in the previous post..Bubba slept through most of it. As hard as i tried to rub his back and wake him up he was zonked out. So Danielle made the house.



We decided Timothy could decorate the gingerbread cookie men, and when he woke up he was totally happy & satisfied with that. Wendy and Bubba made a great team!




They both had alot of fun, and, as is MANDATORY the house was practically dripping with frosting goodness and candy overload.